TRIAL CHAMBER II ("Trial Chamber") of the International
Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of
International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia
since 1991 ("Tribunal");

BEING SEISED OF the "Prosecution’s Motion for Leave
to Amend the Indictment with Confidential and Ex Parte Supporting Materials"
("Motion to Amend the Indictment"), filed by the Office of the Prosecutor ("Prosecution")
on 22 October 2004, and of the "Submission No. 48" ("Request for Extension of
Time") filed by the Accused Vojislav Šeselj ("Accused") on 5 November 2004,
wherein he requests an extension of time to file a response to the Motion to
Amend the Indictment;

NOTING that, in the Request for Extension of Time, the
Accused notifies the Trial Chamber that he will be in a position to respond
to the Motion to Amend the Indictment three days after he receives, "in full
and in the Serbian language", the following documents, parts of which the Prosecution
cites in its Motion to Amend the Indictment:

NOTING that the procès-verbal of
5 November 2004 confirmed that the Accused received from the Registry
the translation into the Bosnian, Croat or Serb language ("B/C/S") of Document No. 4
in its entirety;

CONSIDERING that the aforesaid document was translated
into B/C/S in accordance with the standard practice of the Tribunal;1

NOTING that the procès-verbal of
5 November 2004 also showed that the Accused refused to accept the
English versions of Document No. 1 and of Document No. 2;

CONSIDERING that the aforesaid documents are two Judgements
of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Statute of which provides
that “[t]he working languages of the International Tribunal for Rwanda shall
be English and French”;2

CONSIDERING that the part of the paragraph from Document
No. 1 quoted by the Prosecution in the Motion to Amend the Indictment was
translated into B/C/S together with the rest of the Motion to Amend the Indictment,
and provided to the Accused in that language;3

CONSIDERING that the Motion to Amend the Indictment
makes reference in a footnote to paragraph 22 of Document No. 2, which
states as provided in the attached footnote,4 and
of which the Accused will in this way receive a translation into B/C/S immediately
at the same time as this decision is filed and given to him;

CONSIDERING further that the Accused is not as of right
entitled, under the Statute of the Tribunal ("Statute")5
or under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence ("Rules"),6
to have these two documents translated in their entirety into B/C/S;

CONSIDERING therefore that the fact that Documents No.1
and 2 are not translated in their entirety into B/C/S does not cause the Accused
actual prejudice for the purpose of responding, if he so chooses, to the Motion
to Amend the Indictment, as he has been or will be provided with the translations
into B/C/S of the relevant parts of the aforesaid documents;

NOTING that the Trial Chamber has been informed by the
Registry that the translation of Document No. 3 in its entirety into B/C/S,
to which the Accused is entitled in accordance with the standard practice of
the Tribunal, will become available sometime in December 2004;

CONSIDERING, however, that the part of the paragraph
of the aforesaid document quoted by the Prosecution in the Motion to Amend the
Indictment was translated into B/C/S together with the rest of the Motion to
Amend the Indictment, and provided to the Accused in that language and, moreover,
it is, save for negligible differences, an exact reproduction of part of paragraph
31 of Document No. 4, which the Accused has received translated in its
entirety into B/C/S;7

CONSIDERING therefore that, as a result, the fact that
the translation of Document No. 3 in its entirety into B/C/S is not
yet available to the Accused does not cause him actual prejudice for the purpose
of responding, if he so chooses, to the Motion to Amend the Indictment;

NOTING, finally, that, in the Request for Extension
of Time, the Accused states that he has not yet received the confidential and
ex parte Supporting Materials to the Motion to Amend the Indictment;

NOTING that the Accused is fully aware that the reason
why he has not received the Supporting Materials is precisely because they were
filed in an ex parte manner by the Prosecution;

CONSIDERING, however, that in the Motion to Amend the
Indictment the Prosecution did not provide any justification for filing the
Supporting Materials in an ex parte manner but in actual fact stated
that if the amendments to the Indictment for which it seeks leave were finally
approved by the Trial Chamber, the Accused would be supplied with the said Supporting
Materials;8

CONSIDERING that Rule 50(A)(c) provides that, after
the assignment of the case to a Trial Chamber, the Prosecution may amend an
indictment with the leave of that Trial Chamber or a Judge of that Chamber,
after having heard the parties;

CONSIDERING furthermore that Rule 50(A)(ii) provides
that leave to amend an indictment shall not be granted unless the Trial Chamber
or Judge is satisfied there is evidence which satisfies the standard set forth
in Article 19, paragraph 1, of the Statute to support the proposed amendment;

CONCLUDING therefore that, unless orders for non-disclosure
apply, if the Prosecution seeks to amend an indictment after the assignment
of a case to a Trial Chamber an accused must be in a position to challenge whether
the supporting material adduced in support of an amendment to an indictment
does in actual fact support such an amendment;

CONSIDERING furthermorethat the Prosecution
has not adduced any cogent reasons why the Supporting Materials should be kept
from the Accused until the amendments to the Indictment for which it seeks leave
are approved;

CONSIDERING that Rule 126 bis establishes
that “[u]nless otherwise ordered by a Chamber either generally or in the particular
case, a response, if any, to a motion filed by a party shall be filed within
fourteen days of the filing of the motion”;

FOR THE FOREGOING REASONS

PURSUANT TO Rule 54 and 126 bis of
the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, HEREBY

ORDERS the Prosecution to provide the Supporting Materials to the
Accused by filing them with the Registry within seven (7) days of the filing
of this decision, unless within those seven days it demonstrates good cause
for not doing so;

REMINDS the Accused that, should he wish to respond to the Motion
to Amend the Indictment, he has fourteen (14) days from the date of the aforesaid
filing of the Supporting Materials, unless the Prosecution succeeds in showing
good cause as set out above;

DISMISSES as a result the Request for Extension of Time;

Done in English and French, the English version being authoritative.

Dated this 30th day of November 2004,
At The Hague
The Netherlands

_____________________
Carmel Agius
Presiding Judge

[Seal of the Tribunal]

1. "[A]ll Orders and Decisions issued by
the International Tribunal shall be filed in both working languages and translated
by the Registry into the language of the accused": Prosecutor v Delalic
et al, Case IT-96-21-T, Decision on Defence Application for Forwarding
the Documents in the Language of the Accused, 25 September 1996.
2. Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Article 31.
3. The part of the paragraph which the Prosecution does not reproduce in
the Motion to Amend the Indictment corresponds to the paragraph reproduced below
from Prosecutor v Ruggiu, Case ICTR-97-32-I, Judgement and Sentence,
1 June 2000, and to paragraph 627 of Prosecutor v Kupreskic et al,
Case IT-95-16-T, Judgement, 14 January 2000. The translation of the latter
judgement in its entirety into B/C/S is available from the Registry upon the Accused’s
request.
4. "The Trial Chamber considers that when examining the acts of persecution which
have been admitted by the accused, it is possible to discern a common element.
Those acts were direct and public radio broadcasts all aimed at singling out and
attacking the Tutsi ethnic group and Belgians on discriminatory grounds, by depriving
them of the fundamental rights to life, liberty and basic humanity enjoyed by
members of wider society. The deprivation of these rights can be said to have
as its aim the death and removal of those persons from the society in which they
live alongside the perpetrators, or eventually even from humanity itself": Prosecutor
v Ruggiu, Case ICTR-97-32-I, Judgement and Sentence, 1 June 2000,
para. 22.
5. Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, adopted
on 25 May 1993 by S/RES 827 (1993) and last amended by S/RES 1411 (2002).
6. Rules of Procedure and Evidence, IT/32/Rev.32, 12 August 2004.
7. The Prosecution mistakenly stated that the said part of paragraph 226 of Prosecutor
v Blaskic, Case IT-95-14-A, Judgement, 29 July 2004 corresponded to part
of paragraph 6 of Prosecutor v Deronjic, Case IT-02-61-PT, Decision
on Form of the Indictment, 25 October 2002. It does not: it corresponds
instead to part of paragraph 31 of the latter.
8. Motion to Amend the Indictment, para.19.